Chael Sonnen isn’t just picking Kamaru Usman to beat Dricus du Plessis. He thinks Usman beats the whole division.
Du Plessis welcomes the former welterweight champion back to 185 pounds in Saturday’s UFC Oklahoma City main event at Paycom Center. Sonnen sees a bad stylistic night for the South African, and he can’t look past how du Plessis lost his title to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319.
I would expect that Kamaru is going to win just because he’s a wrestling champion and just because Dricus didn’t just lose his last fight, he lost his last five rounds,” Sonnen told MMA Junkie. And he lost it to a wrestler. Dricus is fantastic, but I do think Kamaru Usman is going to win. I think Kamaru Usman can beat everybody in that bracket. He’s already beaten the champion.
The matchmaking is what really has Sonnen suspicious. Usman has barely fought in two years, and now he’s jumping a weight class for a five-round fight with one of the division’s most dangerous men.
You can’t get a fight for Kamaru Usman? You got one fight for him in two years. You can’t get him to agree to fight anybody, all of a sudden, he’s going to leave his weight class, take on one of the nastiest —- you can find, and he’s going to do it for five rounds? I don’t believe you. Some kind of a deal was made.
He thinks du Plessis got something out of it too, pointing to how quietly the former champ accepted.
Dricus Du Plessis, who’s got the jump not once but twice on Sean Strickland, could be out banging that drum and demanding rematches, never did it once. He quietly signs a contract to go out to Oklahoma and sign a contract to fight Kamaru Usman? These guys were promised something. This fight was about something.
Nassourdine Imavov, meanwhile, remains the division’s clear No. 1 contender.
